Frozen meats from a Kansas City vending machine? MO rancher offers grab-and-go option

Joyce Smith

Tim Haer had heard about vending machines that sell not candy, not chips, but meat. Frozen meat.

He heard they’d long been popular in Europe and Japan. Some North American cities took up the trend during the pandemic.

So why not have one in Kansas City?

“Kansas City was known as Cowtown, USA. If a beef vending machine was going to work anywhere, why not Kansas City?” said Haer, a sixth generation rancher with his family’s Green Grass Cattle Co., on 600 acres near Weston.

The company is now selling some of its premium, humanely raised Black Angus beef in a new vending machine at Front Range Coffeehouse & Provisions, 400 E. Gregory Blvd. in Waldo.

The current selection includes frozen bacon cheeseburger brats, rib-eye and KC strip steaks, all-beef hot dogs, jalapeno cheddar summer sausage, tenderloin fillets, center-cut sirloin fillets and sirloin strips.

Green Grass Cattle Co.’s frozen meats are now available at a Waldo vending machine.
Green Grass Cattle Co.’s frozen meats are now available at a Waldo vending machine.

The family previously sold their meats to wholesalers, “but it was barely profitable,” Haer said.

“A lot of folks in the general public don’t know where their food comes from,” he said. “We want to close that gap, so they know where their food comes from, who raises it and how it was raised. To be able to talk to the person who raised them, there’s a lot of value there.”

In mid-2021, the family opened a retail shop, Green Grass Cattle Company & Mercantile, in Weston. It sells their meats, along with barbecue sauces and seasonings, candles, home goods, T-shirts and hats, toys and children’s books and more, all from small producers including Kansas City’s Sandlot Goods, “all kind of centered around agriculture,” he said.

They also started selling online, delivering directly to Kansas City area residents.

They were looking for another convenient way for customers to buy their products. He spent months researching best practices for operating meat vending machines, which cost around $6,000 new. His is refurbished.

“I’m very, very particular. I want to know everything about it before I say this is something we should try,’ he said.

In April 2020, Jones Bar-B-Q in Kansas City, Kansas, put up a vending machine in front of their shop. It offers their top-selling barbecue and is so popular, they recently added barbecue beans.

Burnt ends in a vending machine? Fans of Kansas Bar-B-Q now have no-contact, 24/7 access

The Green Grass vending machine also is outside, by a commercial ice freezer. So customers have 24/7 access.

They insert their credit card, then slide open a small Plexiglass window to remove their meat purchase. Haer said his prices are competitive with higher-end grocery stores. If it is popular with consumers, he plans to add more area locations.

Green Grass Cattle Co., of Weston, has installed this vending machine just outside the Front Range Coffee shop, at 400 E. Gregory. Tim Haer, the owner of Green Grass Cattle Co., recently installed and stocked the machine with a variety of meats from the Weston company’s operation.
Green Grass Cattle Co., of Weston, has installed this vending machine just outside the Front Range Coffee shop, at 400 E. Gregory. Tim Haer, the owner of Green Grass Cattle Co., recently installed and stocked the machine with a variety of meats from the Weston company’s operation.

His family started ranching in northwest Missouri in 1846. Along with promoting other local makers and producers through their retail shop, they have other ties to local companies.

For example, they take spent distilled grains from J. Rieger & Co. distillery in the East Bottoms to mix with bales of other cattle feed.

“This winter we will feed out over two and a half million pounds of baleage to our cattle,” Haer said. “It takes about six hours a day, whether it’s raining or cold, the animals need to be fed.”

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